Thursday and Friday are sort of a blur. I do know that neither night did I sleep very well. Wednesday I slept maybe an hour. There was just too much going on in my brain. We got to Showalter's place at about 10 o'clock. The neighbors came out and asked if there was anything they could do for us. We had picked up a little dog that was wandering around as we walked out, and I handed that dog to them, because I had too much to think about as it was. They took her, and have since contacted the owner and discovered that her 'daddy' died of a heart attack during the storm and her 'mommy' is in the hospital recovering from injuries from the storm, so it's a good thing we picked her up. She had an injury to her eye, that seems to have healed up pretty well already. They still have her, but will re-unite her with her owners when they are ready to have her.
We went inside at Showalter's, Wednesday night and attempted to figure out how to fit 12 people into a space usually occupied by 4. (as we drove near by to the place that was the 'official shelter' we debated, briefly, as to whether we should go there, since descending on Showalters with 8 of us seemed like alot to ask - but we decided that being at their house would help the little kids have peace of mind, since it is a place we go every Tuesday night for bible study - they are comfortable there, in familiar surroundings) What gracious hosts we have had!! They have provided us with a HOME in the midst of our chaotic life of the last week.
Lon ended up sleeping on a mattress out in the garage because our dog, Maggie, is with us here, and she barks and barks and barks if she is out there by herself. She can't be in the house because of Mike and Darlene's allergy/asthma situation. So someone had to sleep out there with her. After I got the little ones all bedded down, I went out and laid with him, and we 'decompressed' for a while (do NOT read anything into that - we were TALKING!) just processing, and finding out what had happened when/where, etc in our chaotic day. I ended up going back into the house and sleeping in the guest bed with Emma, the little bit of sleep I did get. I don't remember really, what I was thinking about, just replaying the day I guess. We already knew at that point that we had walked past a house with two dead people in it. And that they were still trying to get four people out of another house, as we left, that they could not get to, because of the flood waters in the drainage ditch. As I lay there thinking about how different the whole thing could have been for us, God kind of gave me a reality check. How much of a different place we would be in if we had had to leave a body behind in the house. I realized that the whole 'We are all alive and together' thing sounds SO trite, but it is SO HUGE. Oh - my - goodness!! I had been saying it from the very beginning - but that was the moment that it sank it's meaning into the very marrow of my bones. And the fact that we climbed up out of the storm shelter and found that Nan and Doug's house was GONE. I am SO grateful that we have developed a relationship with them, and had invited them to ALWAYS come join us in our shelter. It would have been devastating to find that they were lost. The only things we lost were just STUFF, and probably even stuff we don't even NEED anyway! When I called mom, immediately after we got hit - to let her know we were alive - I told her that we would likely only recover about 10-20% of our stuff. I think, in the end, it will be closer to the opposite being true. We have recovered 80-90% and lost 10-20%. The people are all alive, and, for the most part, even in pretty good spirits. I know there are other's out there who are not. Who have lost loved ones, and lost their stuff, and who don't have the faith, family, and friends that we have sustaining us so well, and I feel for them. I don't know what I would do in their situation. I guess I might ask that some of you out there in the blogosphere transfer some of your many prayers for us, to some of those hurting people around us.
But, I'm supposed to be recalling the time line. of events - I digress - sorry.
Thursday morning at about 6:45, I heard Darlene up and getting ready to go out. She had received a text message that there were grocery stores open in Athens (next town to the west) So, she and I got in her husband's car and headed out. It was not too bad getting there. We did drive through, what we found out later, was a part of 'our' tornado's path. It was pretty sobering to see. House after house after house, simply LEVELED! The only other thing to note about 'the trip' was that there were gas lines like CRAZY at every station we went by that had power back. That was the case for several days. Supply was not the problem, it was the electricity to pump the gas into people's cars. (we ended up having one of our church members go fill a bunch of gas cans for all of us - so we would not have to take the time to go wait in line - he called and wanted to know what he could do to help!)
Anyway - we got to the Athen's Walmart and discovered that it was not open. There were some ladies standing out in front, and I went to ask them what the story was. They said that without power, they were not opening up. I told them I was just hoping to get toothbrushes, underwear and socks for my kids. There was some 'going and getting of managers' etc. and eventually, I was escorted in, to find a few things I needed. The lady that took me in had to write down all the UPC codes of what they gave me and so that they could write off the donation, and so the whole process took about 45 minutes. It was hard not to want to just ask for some bread and bananas and shoes (which I did actually ask for) and ... and... because at that point I was under the understanding that we had pretty much lost EVERYTHING. But I was SO grateful for what she was giving me, I kept my mouth shut! I came out, about 45 minutes later, with two grocery bags full of 'essentials' that Walmart had given to us. They may be a big corporate company that I don't agree with some of the practices of what they do, but they do have employees who have a heart and were willing to reach out and do what they could in the situation. I got to the car and discovered that Darlene had set in the car and watched them turn away person after person after person after I went in. I was the only one who got in there that morning. "Ask, and ye shall receive".
We then went to Publix to get groceries and dog food. Just getting a cart was quite a feat. We ran into Bill and Anna, from church, Bill is the deacon that was at the church with Lon and him get to us, and helped us get out in his truck. He was so relieved to see us again, he nearly cried, right there in Publix.
We got groceries. Focusing our efforts on things that can be cooked on a camp stove and Bar-B-Que. I picked up some toiletries and dog food for Maggie. I also grabbed several pair of leather work gloves and contractor trash bags. Both proved to be VERY useful over the next few days. Darlene was impressed with how constrained people were being. She said in hurricane season in Miami - there are complete panicked 'runs' on the grocery store - with people buying ALL of a certain product - just sweeping the shelves clean - and then turning around and selling it at a profit, etc etc. This was complete restraint - people just getting what they needed. Very beautiful.
We got back to the house around 10, I think. The guys were sort of focusing on getting 'household' set up for all of us. Michael is the Pathfinder director, so they went to the church and recovered the cooking items from the camping gear there. They also, at some point, got the Pathfinder van for us to use as a vehicle, since our truck was still trapped in the garage. We heard, I believe on the radio, that no one was being allowed up into our area until the search and rescue efforts were completed. We had limited gasoline resources and we didn't want to drive up there, just to be turned away. So we waited. We spread things out on the lawn to dry and we ate breakfast, etc. (not much appetite!). Cell phone communications went down some time on Thursday - Lon speculated that the cell towers had used up their battery back-up resources - so there was no calling to check on people, so those who had gas, drove around checking on people. Several people from church came by, to check on Showalters, and discovered us there, and then came back with food for us all! At one point someone showed up who had been to our house to check on us! Apparently we could get up there! So at some point in the early afternoon we got in the van and headed up there. I don't remember which of the kids came along at that point - I know the three little kids did NOT go, I think only Annie and Sarah came, because Emma was not there when we found her chickens. Michael shot alot of video of that particular trip. I'll try to get some of it posted later.
We got out and sort of wandered around a bit, taking a few pictures, etc. Then, set about clearing the path to the front door, which was covered in debris. Even getting into the house, though, did not set us right to work recovering stuff. There was so much debris everywhere it was a chore just to clear paths so people could get around. We did find a couple of 'treasures' right away. I found my mother's recipe box almost immediately! That was a BIG one for me. I don't really remember specifically what else was found, but I know that each of the four of us found an item or two that we were hoping would be able to be recovered. We went downstairs to check on the pets we had left there. They were all fine. I had prepared Emma for the fact that, while we had found five of her chickens alive after the storm, they were pretty wet, bedraggled and traumatized and that they might not make it through the night. Annie and Sarah and I went down to check on them, in the closet where she had cloistered them, and not only were they alive, they had laid three eggs overnight!! That was just AMAZING to me!! The cat showed himself at some point while we were there Thursday. So that was good to know. He was having a hard time believing that we were not going to chase him out of the house every time we found him 'inside'! He would RUN whenever we startled him by finding him in this room or that room that he had never been allowed into! We checked in on various neighbors, and I dont' remember what else we did. We loaded up two loads of stuff, including the rabbit and guinea pigs. I guess into the van and the truck of another church member. There was a dusk-to-dawn cerfew, so we didn't stay REAL long, some of us left a bit earlier, so we could go check on a couple of other church members who live not too far from us. So we went separate directions when we left and from what Lon said, he would likely get to the house before us. We checked in on Dennis and on Nigel, both were fine. They lost just trees and limbs, no house damage. And we headed back to Showalter's place. When we got there, the guys were not there yet. They did not arrive for quite a while and I was getting pretty worried about them. But in the end, what they did was to go and secure a storage unit! They left a bunch of stuff there! I should have known they were doing something wonderful. That evening I don't remember what we did in the evening. Even eating, etc is such a challenge after dark. We probably went to bed early.
Friday morning our intention was to be at the house quite early but there were delays of one sort or another. Unfortunately, Lon is not here with me right now - he is at a sleep study tonight - so he is not able to fill in the places where my memory has holes. Maybe he can post something later and do that. I just know it was around 10 before we got over there on Friday. One of the first things Michael and Lon did was to go to the garage and climb in through the truck and uncover the generator and drag it back, through the truck, and up into the house to be taken to Showalter's place. They were SO proud of themselves - they came marching up into the living room shouting, "The VICTORIOUS Engineers have returned SUCCESSFUL from their all-important quest!!" So cute - even 'geeks' can be triumphant!!
We did alot of recovery on Friday - essential stuff, and things that might get damaged by being wet, as rain was expected in on Sunday and we were not planning to work on Sabbath. Some church members had expressed the desire to help us out on Sabbath, but we really felt we wanted to rest. So it was a race against time, to get out things that would be further damaged by rain. Alot was recovered that day - furniture, Electronics, etc. There were people who just showed up and asked to help. There were church members. There was Ed. Ed Hartano was there before US!! (we found out later that one of the neighbors thought he might be looting and came over and questioned him - NICE! and when he identified us by name, they knew he was helping, not looting - even in the midst of all this - neighbors being watchful and just generally sweet!) And he just kept going and going and going all day - in fact, I think he was one who had been there on Thursday, too. We have nick-named him 'Ed, the Energizer Bunny" We love Ed.
We tried to get out of there in plenty of time to get back to Showalter's place and get cleaned up in time for Sabbath but we were just a tad late. Lon started to get upset about it and Annie called him on it, and he reprimanded her for talking to her in a way inappropriate for a 'child' to talk to her parent. I was later able to point out to him that she is 17, and she has done a TON of growing up in the last 48 hours, and he might need to start thinking of her as a fellow adult. That was a bit of an eye opener. She has been great though, Even between the storms on Wed. She, Chip, Charlie, and another teen-aged neighbor boy were going around and rescuing people and checking on people, etc. She is just a work horse. She seems to deal with stress by digging in and getting busy. It's been nice to see that maturity and adult-like behavior.
Another sign of kids 'growing up' because of this - people had started offering to send us gift cards, and money, etc. And Sarah was so touched by that- she also said something very grown-up, though - "Mommy - we are saving alot of our stuff - can we share some of the money people send us with Nan and Doug" - It's so heartening to see how our family is pulling together, maturing, showing generosity and making do. I'm so proud of my kids.
When I left the house on Friday (this was part of what slowed us down) I made sure that the three little kids were packed and ready to go, because I was suspicious that a certain gal in the church would come get them. I was right, she showed up while I was back at the house spreading clothes out on the lawn. She and Winton took the three little ones and cared for them for us, so we didn't have to worry about them for the next few days while we focused on getting stuff out of the house. Tommy did NOT want to go. He was in tears - just not wanting to be apart from his sisters. But we talked him through it and he went, and in the end, he had a great time. I promised them, when they went that we would at least SEE each other by Tuesday. They ended up staying over there till Monday morning - and April brought them to us then.
We were beginning to gather info from various sources and had heard that there were 8 deaths in our county - that we knew of at that point, 5 of them were within a mile of our house. That was still such a sobering fact. It kept us focused on our gratitude that we were all alive. It was also interesting that Madison County was not yet listed on the FEMA Disaster list. But Friday evening one of the neighbors at Showalter's told us that it was because other counties get out and document and get included in the list first and then work on recovery. Madison county chooses to do it the other way around - they make sure their people are all safe, and THEN document and pursue the federal $$. I can live with that. ( we were included on the FEMA list officially on Monday )
We heard from Doug at one point, that a NOAA representative had come through the neighborhood and the preliminary assessments were that it was an EF4 that hit us. That we were only 10-15 mph under the divider between EF4 and EF5!! That is some POWERFUL work that nature accomplished!! The house has plant matter and glass shards and... well, you name it, embedded and plastered on it EVERYWHERE. Like someone took a spray gun and just splattered stuff everywhere.
Well - once again, the pain meds are doing their magic, and I'm dozing. I'll write about Sabbath tomorrow. And perhaps even have a minute to work on posting some pictures. Anyone who wants to send me some tips on that process - that would be helpful. I do find my brain, while able to be very focused on some things, at other times VERY scattered and unable to concentrate. Imagine that!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
It's an adventure alright!!
I'm going to start at the beginning, of our current adventure. We found out on Tuesday night at our bible study with the Showalter's that there was a 'series of bad storms' headed our way on Wednesday. The first one hit before we got up in the morning - just rain and wind - not even any thunder. We got up and I took Lon to work and Annie and I went to a Chiropractor appointment. We also grabbed some groceries.
Just after we got home, about 10, the weather radio alarm went off - we went down into the shelter, - our house has a basement, which is somewhat unusual for this area - and while it is not 'technically' a storm shelter - it is below grade, and since most injuries from tornadoes come from flying debris - it would be expected to keep us safe in anything but an EF5. Anyway - we soon came back up because that particular storm was not in our immediate area. The weather alarm goes off if there is anything at 'warning level' anywhere in the county - you get a little cavalier about it after a while, especially when you live in a corner of the county and you get so many 'warnings' for stuff that is 40-50 miles away! I ran to the feed store because Emma's guinea pig cage was in desperate need of being changed - I needed pine bedding. When I got there I was told that they had had quarter sized hail in the second storm, just a mile from the house! Wow! I took a picture, when I got home, of our 'damage' - which involved a deck chair being thrown onto the corner of the deck railing (I laugh whenever I see that picture now!)
We also got word that the storm had put a few trees down on the church property, including one on the building. Apparently one of the other deacons called Lon and said "I'm coming to pick you up at work, so we can just get this dealt with" Lon is head deacon, so I guess Bill just assumed that Lon would want to go work on it NOW. Lon sort of didn't want to lose time at work, but he let God lead and went along anyway. (had Bill not picked Lon up and taken him to the church at that point, he would have been three times as far away from home, and without any transportation, as I had dropped him off at work that day!)
I had to also run some tools and work clothes down to the church between the second and third storm. Getting home was nerve wracking - I knew another storm was headed in, and the people in front of me were gawking, and driving SO slow! The third storm arrived just as I was getting home - it was stronger, brought hail - which from the shelter, sounded like it was falling on the floor of the room above us - and it also knocked out the power. This was the first power outage we have experienced in all the storms we have been through here - I had not realized how helpless I would feel. Sarah was able to connect with Lon and find out how to listen to the weather reports on the hand-held ham radio she has (THANK YOU PATHFINDERS!) and I realized I could get online on my i-phone and view the internet sites I usually use, there. I called Share at PVC and asked her to get online and see what else was still coming. The news was not good.
About 4:00 'something' told us to go into the shelter - different kids tell me it was different things - I honestly don't remember whether it was the outdoor siren, the ham radio, the neighbors arriving at the door - as has become their habit - when a warning is out - or just a 'this is for real - let's go!' We got down into the shelter with Nan, and her two boys, Chip and Charlie, both older than Annie. We could hear the TORRENTIAL rain, wind, and then we began to hear sounds of the house breaking up above us. We probably heard the neighbor's trailer slam into the garage, but being cloistered in the basement we had no idea what it was. We had tremendous pressure in our ears and started seeing dust in the air and smelling the pine-smell of lumber breaking up. Through all of that, there was an amazing peace in the shelter. None of the kids were screaming, and the dog was even pretty calm. We had the rabbit and guinea pigs down there too - the chickens were left in the yard to fend for themselves. We were all just sort of in 'hyper-sensitive observation mode' seeing, smelling, hearing the things around us, but there was no sense of terror that several people have expressed that we must have felt. I think God's spirit was there with us, keeping us calm.
When things seemed to have calmed down it was SO hard to know when it would be safe to go upstairs. Chip, Charlie and I went up and had to climb through the doorway at the top of the stairs sideways, because the refrigerator had been scooted across the floor and partially jammed the doorway. Chip and Charlie were trying to get a view of their house, across the street, and the fridge also blocked that view. It looked like a war zone up there. Doors and windows were laying in places that made it difficult to discern where they had come from. Stuff was strewn in places that made it difficult to fathom which way the wind 'came from' - in fact - some windows were blown in and some were blown out. It was still raining pretty hard, because the storm was 'rain wrapped' and a neighbor boy from down the street showed up at one of our back windows to make sure we were all ok, and to let us know there were at least two more storms yet to come. He and I went across the 'yard' to another neighbor's place - through standing water and debris, with lightning and hail all around and got her, and her two-month-old daughter out of her 'safe place' under a sturdy work bench in their partially below-grade garage. We brought them to our shelter - another family of 8 or so (across four generations) also showed up, including another two-month old baby and a 92-year-old non-ambulatory gramma, - I'm not sure HOW she got TO our house, as it was nearly impossible to get her down the stairs!! But we had 20+ people in there, from five different households before the fifth storm hit. I have no idea what time that one was. It carried wind and rain, but fortunately, neither it, nor the sixth storm brought more tornadoes. [I later found out that this was not true - but when I wrote this blog entry I didn't know that yet - the fifth storm did pack an EF1 tornado, it's not on the records anywhere, because it's hard to find evidence of an EF1 that goes directly over the path of an EF5, but one of the people who was in our basement has a family member who was trying to get to her, and WATCHED it go over our neighborhood] I had called my parents to let them know we were alive - my mom answered 'wow - it's a special day - three calls from you in one day!' - I said, "Oh, yes, it's a special day all right - our house just got destroyed!" I told her that we were all safe and that it looked like we might be able to recover 10-20% of our possessions. I also called Lon and let him know we had been hit.
He and the two deacons that were there at the church (normally ten minutes from the house) then began the work of getting to the house (though they did stay at the church for a bit because they didn't feel it was safe to venture out.) It took them three hours to get to us - and several miracles too!! We weathered the fifth and sixth storms and I have no idea when/how all the people from the basement left. But we eventually found ourselves at the house alone, waiting for Lon to arrive and trying to secure various items, as the basement began to fill with rain (well, not FILL, but there was standing water - as much as an inch deep in places). The homeowners kept pallets down there, so we were able to put things up on pallets and also we were able to get to the garage and get some tarps (actually old vinyl table clothes that I keep for picnic's) to cover some things.
Emma, at some point gathered five of her six chickens who had SOMEHOW weathered the storm in the yard and were looking pretty bedraggled, but were miraculously alive, and put them in the closet of her basement bedroom, with food and water. She also found the body of the sixth one, so we knew not to continue searching for it. We did not find the cat before we left that night. But were were pretty sure he was safe, the area he would have been in, in the garage was relatively untouched. [Reading that, now, almost two years later, I almost laugh. Because when people ask us if our house was damaged, I often tell them this: "Well, put it this way, our Ford Excursion was parked INside the garage and it was totaled!"]
We put some clothing into suitcases, and lap-tops into back-packs, and we carried photo albums downstairs and tarped them and tarped Lon's desk-top computer [which, by the way, saved it, when the ceilings tiles were saturated and fell on it!] We got the boys dressed and found shoes for everyone, even Chip and Charlie - who had left their flip-flops on the now-buried front porch. At one point Tommy even laid down and took a little nap! (I was concerned about shock - but he woke up soon and seemed fine) We snapped a few photos with my i-phone being VERY careful not to misplace it, or my purse! The boys and Emma also walked down the road to a little friend's house, to make sure he was OK too.
We were JUST starting to get a little nervous about the thought of having to spend the night in the house, as it was beginning to get dark, when there came a knock at the front door. Who was there but a fellow from church who is on one of the volunteer firefighter crews in the area? He said 'I'm sorry I didn't call first!" I said "yeah, if you had let me know you were coming I would have cleaned up a bit!" He had five or six other rescue workers with him, and Lon was with them. The kids were a tiny bit scared at first, but the workers were skilled at what they do and soon had Mayahna piggy backing on someones back, giggling as we prepared to leave for the night. We had to leave the guinea Pigs and rabbit, as we were told the trip to our transportation was rather arduous.
When we left, we had the dog, five suitcases, a laundry basket that I THOUGHT had my tennis shoes in it (I had my garden shoes on) Emma and Annie had school-type back-packs on and Sarah had her violin. Just getting out of the neighborhood was quite a trick as there were MULTIPLE trees down. We had to pick our way through, relieved to know that none of the wires that were all strewn in with everything else were live!! Once we got the 1/4 mile to the entrance of the development we discovered (well, Lon and the firefighters knew - he had come through it to get to us) that we had 150-200 feet of flowing water to cross - some as deep as two feet deep. The firefighters had to leave us there, as they were a water-rescue team and got called off to another call. We left some kids and some suitcases there, with an officer, and got a first group across, and discovered that our 'ride' was not where Lon had left them! Lon went on down the road further to try to find them, and/or call them, and I went back to get the rest of the kids/stuff across the water so that we would be together. Upon returning to where the first group was waiting I NEARLY walked across an area of water that I thought had road under it, and I felt a STRONG sense that I needed to STOP. I then realized that what I THOUGHT was the road, was actually the ditch, and had I taken even three more steps I would have been washed away by the strong current of the flood waters. We got everyone across and stood waiting for a bit. Decided it would be easier without the laundry basket and stuffed all of it's contents into the suitcases, and started walking down the road to where we thought Lon and the ride were probably located. We found a small terrier-type dog that was wondering around and had tags with phone numbers, so we picked her up and brought her with us. (We found out later that her 'daddy' had died of a heart attack and her 'mommy' was taken to the hospital, so it was a good thing we picked her up! We were able to give her to a neighbor of the Showalter's when we arrived there, who came out and asked, "What can I do for you - they have been caring for her, as I felt that we had enough on our plate!) (we also found out later that one of the other 'houses' - now a tangled pretzel-looking manufactured home - had two dead people in it) (there was also a third home, down closer to the water, that the workers were trying to get across the water to, to rescue four people who were trapped inside there).
As we were walking, several rigs drove by us, and I flagged them down but it was the third or fourth one that finally picked us up. Sarah was able to radio Lon and let him know we were riding out, so that he didn't still try to get in and get us. We had a happy re-union about a mile and a half from our house, about an hour or so after we had left the house. The two deacons that had brought Lon to that point in their vehicles took us to the Showalter's house, where we had heard about all of this being headed our way just the evening before! One deacon drives a pick-up truck, so all the stuff went in the back of the truck, and the other, who usually drives a small truck, had his mother's mini-van, so there was plenty of room for our large brood. He had driven to Chattanooga the weekend before and his truck had broken down there, so his mother, whom he had gone to visit, just told him to take her van home! God was watching out for us, even the weekend before, when Phil drove that mini van home from Chattanooga!
Well, I need to stop for now. I'll write more later today or tomorrow. There is SO much to tell about the ensuing days, and all of the blessings that God has poured into our lives, we can't even begin to account for all of the ways that God is blessing us.
more later - Sharon
Just after we got home, about 10, the weather radio alarm went off - we went down into the shelter, - our house has a basement, which is somewhat unusual for this area - and while it is not 'technically' a storm shelter - it is below grade, and since most injuries from tornadoes come from flying debris - it would be expected to keep us safe in anything but an EF5. Anyway - we soon came back up because that particular storm was not in our immediate area. The weather alarm goes off if there is anything at 'warning level' anywhere in the county - you get a little cavalier about it after a while, especially when you live in a corner of the county and you get so many 'warnings' for stuff that is 40-50 miles away! I ran to the feed store because Emma's guinea pig cage was in desperate need of being changed - I needed pine bedding. When I got there I was told that they had had quarter sized hail in the second storm, just a mile from the house! Wow! I took a picture, when I got home, of our 'damage' - which involved a deck chair being thrown onto the corner of the deck railing (I laugh whenever I see that picture now!)
We also got word that the storm had put a few trees down on the church property, including one on the building. Apparently one of the other deacons called Lon and said "I'm coming to pick you up at work, so we can just get this dealt with" Lon is head deacon, so I guess Bill just assumed that Lon would want to go work on it NOW. Lon sort of didn't want to lose time at work, but he let God lead and went along anyway. (had Bill not picked Lon up and taken him to the church at that point, he would have been three times as far away from home, and without any transportation, as I had dropped him off at work that day!)
I had to also run some tools and work clothes down to the church between the second and third storm. Getting home was nerve wracking - I knew another storm was headed in, and the people in front of me were gawking, and driving SO slow! The third storm arrived just as I was getting home - it was stronger, brought hail - which from the shelter, sounded like it was falling on the floor of the room above us - and it also knocked out the power. This was the first power outage we have experienced in all the storms we have been through here - I had not realized how helpless I would feel. Sarah was able to connect with Lon and find out how to listen to the weather reports on the hand-held ham radio she has (THANK YOU PATHFINDERS!) and I realized I could get online on my i-phone and view the internet sites I usually use, there. I called Share at PVC and asked her to get online and see what else was still coming. The news was not good.
About 4:00 'something' told us to go into the shelter - different kids tell me it was different things - I honestly don't remember whether it was the outdoor siren, the ham radio, the neighbors arriving at the door - as has become their habit - when a warning is out - or just a 'this is for real - let's go!' We got down into the shelter with Nan, and her two boys, Chip and Charlie, both older than Annie. We could hear the TORRENTIAL rain, wind, and then we began to hear sounds of the house breaking up above us. We probably heard the neighbor's trailer slam into the garage, but being cloistered in the basement we had no idea what it was. We had tremendous pressure in our ears and started seeing dust in the air and smelling the pine-smell of lumber breaking up. Through all of that, there was an amazing peace in the shelter. None of the kids were screaming, and the dog was even pretty calm. We had the rabbit and guinea pigs down there too - the chickens were left in the yard to fend for themselves. We were all just sort of in 'hyper-sensitive observation mode' seeing, smelling, hearing the things around us, but there was no sense of terror that several people have expressed that we must have felt. I think God's spirit was there with us, keeping us calm.
When things seemed to have calmed down it was SO hard to know when it would be safe to go upstairs. Chip, Charlie and I went up and had to climb through the doorway at the top of the stairs sideways, because the refrigerator had been scooted across the floor and partially jammed the doorway. Chip and Charlie were trying to get a view of their house, across the street, and the fridge also blocked that view. It looked like a war zone up there. Doors and windows were laying in places that made it difficult to discern where they had come from. Stuff was strewn in places that made it difficult to fathom which way the wind 'came from' - in fact - some windows were blown in and some were blown out. It was still raining pretty hard, because the storm was 'rain wrapped' and a neighbor boy from down the street showed up at one of our back windows to make sure we were all ok, and to let us know there were at least two more storms yet to come. He and I went across the 'yard' to another neighbor's place - through standing water and debris, with lightning and hail all around and got her, and her two-month-old daughter out of her 'safe place' under a sturdy work bench in their partially below-grade garage. We brought them to our shelter - another family of 8 or so (across four generations) also showed up, including another two-month old baby and a 92-year-old non-ambulatory gramma, - I'm not sure HOW she got TO our house, as it was nearly impossible to get her down the stairs!! But we had 20+ people in there, from five different households before the fifth storm hit. I have no idea what time that one was. It carried wind and rain, but fortunately, neither it, nor the sixth storm brought more tornadoes. [I later found out that this was not true - but when I wrote this blog entry I didn't know that yet - the fifth storm did pack an EF1 tornado, it's not on the records anywhere, because it's hard to find evidence of an EF1 that goes directly over the path of an EF5, but one of the people who was in our basement has a family member who was trying to get to her, and WATCHED it go over our neighborhood] I had called my parents to let them know we were alive - my mom answered 'wow - it's a special day - three calls from you in one day!' - I said, "Oh, yes, it's a special day all right - our house just got destroyed!" I told her that we were all safe and that it looked like we might be able to recover 10-20% of our possessions. I also called Lon and let him know we had been hit.
He and the two deacons that were there at the church (normally ten minutes from the house) then began the work of getting to the house (though they did stay at the church for a bit because they didn't feel it was safe to venture out.) It took them three hours to get to us - and several miracles too!! We weathered the fifth and sixth storms and I have no idea when/how all the people from the basement left. But we eventually found ourselves at the house alone, waiting for Lon to arrive and trying to secure various items, as the basement began to fill with rain (well, not FILL, but there was standing water - as much as an inch deep in places). The homeowners kept pallets down there, so we were able to put things up on pallets and also we were able to get to the garage and get some tarps (actually old vinyl table clothes that I keep for picnic's) to cover some things.
Emma, at some point gathered five of her six chickens who had SOMEHOW weathered the storm in the yard and were looking pretty bedraggled, but were miraculously alive, and put them in the closet of her basement bedroom, with food and water. She also found the body of the sixth one, so we knew not to continue searching for it. We did not find the cat before we left that night. But were were pretty sure he was safe, the area he would have been in, in the garage was relatively untouched. [Reading that, now, almost two years later, I almost laugh. Because when people ask us if our house was damaged, I often tell them this: "Well, put it this way, our Ford Excursion was parked INside the garage and it was totaled!"]
We put some clothing into suitcases, and lap-tops into back-packs, and we carried photo albums downstairs and tarped them and tarped Lon's desk-top computer [which, by the way, saved it, when the ceilings tiles were saturated and fell on it!] We got the boys dressed and found shoes for everyone, even Chip and Charlie - who had left their flip-flops on the now-buried front porch. At one point Tommy even laid down and took a little nap! (I was concerned about shock - but he woke up soon and seemed fine) We snapped a few photos with my i-phone being VERY careful not to misplace it, or my purse! The boys and Emma also walked down the road to a little friend's house, to make sure he was OK too.
We were JUST starting to get a little nervous about the thought of having to spend the night in the house, as it was beginning to get dark, when there came a knock at the front door. Who was there but a fellow from church who is on one of the volunteer firefighter crews in the area? He said 'I'm sorry I didn't call first!" I said "yeah, if you had let me know you were coming I would have cleaned up a bit!" He had five or six other rescue workers with him, and Lon was with them. The kids were a tiny bit scared at first, but the workers were skilled at what they do and soon had Mayahna piggy backing on someones back, giggling as we prepared to leave for the night. We had to leave the guinea Pigs and rabbit, as we were told the trip to our transportation was rather arduous.
When we left, we had the dog, five suitcases, a laundry basket that I THOUGHT had my tennis shoes in it (I had my garden shoes on) Emma and Annie had school-type back-packs on and Sarah had her violin. Just getting out of the neighborhood was quite a trick as there were MULTIPLE trees down. We had to pick our way through, relieved to know that none of the wires that were all strewn in with everything else were live!! Once we got the 1/4 mile to the entrance of the development we discovered (well, Lon and the firefighters knew - he had come through it to get to us) that we had 150-200 feet of flowing water to cross - some as deep as two feet deep. The firefighters had to leave us there, as they were a water-rescue team and got called off to another call. We left some kids and some suitcases there, with an officer, and got a first group across, and discovered that our 'ride' was not where Lon had left them! Lon went on down the road further to try to find them, and/or call them, and I went back to get the rest of the kids/stuff across the water so that we would be together. Upon returning to where the first group was waiting I NEARLY walked across an area of water that I thought had road under it, and I felt a STRONG sense that I needed to STOP. I then realized that what I THOUGHT was the road, was actually the ditch, and had I taken even three more steps I would have been washed away by the strong current of the flood waters. We got everyone across and stood waiting for a bit. Decided it would be easier without the laundry basket and stuffed all of it's contents into the suitcases, and started walking down the road to where we thought Lon and the ride were probably located. We found a small terrier-type dog that was wondering around and had tags with phone numbers, so we picked her up and brought her with us. (We found out later that her 'daddy' had died of a heart attack and her 'mommy' was taken to the hospital, so it was a good thing we picked her up! We were able to give her to a neighbor of the Showalter's when we arrived there, who came out and asked, "What can I do for you - they have been caring for her, as I felt that we had enough on our plate!) (we also found out later that one of the other 'houses' - now a tangled pretzel-looking manufactured home - had two dead people in it) (there was also a third home, down closer to the water, that the workers were trying to get across the water to, to rescue four people who were trapped inside there).
As we were walking, several rigs drove by us, and I flagged them down but it was the third or fourth one that finally picked us up. Sarah was able to radio Lon and let him know we were riding out, so that he didn't still try to get in and get us. We had a happy re-union about a mile and a half from our house, about an hour or so after we had left the house. The two deacons that had brought Lon to that point in their vehicles took us to the Showalter's house, where we had heard about all of this being headed our way just the evening before! One deacon drives a pick-up truck, so all the stuff went in the back of the truck, and the other, who usually drives a small truck, had his mother's mini-van, so there was plenty of room for our large brood. He had driven to Chattanooga the weekend before and his truck had broken down there, so his mother, whom he had gone to visit, just told him to take her van home! God was watching out for us, even the weekend before, when Phil drove that mini van home from Chattanooga!
Well, I need to stop for now. I'll write more later today or tomorrow. There is SO much to tell about the ensuing days, and all of the blessings that God has poured into our lives, we can't even begin to account for all of the ways that God is blessing us.
more later - Sharon
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I think that homelessness is something that every community deals with. Some places have more homeless people than others but they are still there. My opinuon is that if there was no such things as drugs and alcohol, there would be a lot less people on the street. I feel sorry for the people that lost there job and had no choice. Some times I wish that all the rich people in the world would help all the people who struggle to make it day to day. I am soooooo glad that we have a roof over our heads and beds to sleep in and food to eat. And I'm glad that some people stop rushing through their life to actually see the person on the corner with the cardboard sign and stop to help them.
Friday, March 18, 2011
My Take on Homlessness (by Annie)
Last year on the mission trip I went on in Portland I had the opportunity to help some of the homeless people of the city. Seeing all those people, (including some families with young children) it really drove home to me just how lucky I am to have a roof over my head, let alone a nice T.V., wii, computer, iPod and plenty of clothes. I had never really realized just how many families, let alone all the singles, there are out there that have no place to live, and no access to a constant food source. It made me realize just how incredibly spoiled rotten I am. I mean, yeah my parents had told us many times that we were spoiled, but I didn't realize just HOW spoiled we were until I saw it first hand. All in all, I doubt I will ever consider my self lacking in any way ever again.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Spring (by Annie)
Of the many things that are different down here, what I think the biggest one is is that spring comes so soon. Out in the North West spring arrives in mid-to-late March, while out here we have had a couple of weeks already where the weather was in the 70s all week. Although one down side to that is that we have to stop using the dryer and start hanging things up on the line, (when the weather is nice enough that is). I have a feeling that I'm going to freeze these next two weeks when I am out on the west coast. Although it is a little annoying that every thing is getting all green, every thing that is Except for the grass!! Oh well it wont be to much longer and even the grass will be green.
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